ARolling Stone's Infinity Flicker Build with Eldritch Battery[0.10.0] [IHG]
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WARNING: This build is UNTESTED. I am currently at level 51 in Act 3 Cruel and while I am having a blast and not noticing any real difficulty, if a build can not reach 70+ and Handle Maps it is considered a failure in my opinion. Based on that I will update this build with my insight as well as my progress to tell you if this build is end game viable. I will say this much though, the Journey to End Game as a Infinity Flicker Ninja is a blast.
As a proud member of InHouseGaming I present my attempt at the Infinity Flicker Build. The goal of this build is to build up enough crit to be able to constantly use Flicker Strike, or use it to such a degree that it seems constant. CLASS: To begin with we use the Shadow Class as it has the best access to Power Charge Nodes, Frenzy Charge Nodes, and Critical Strike Nodes. It also has easy access to Eldritch Battery which is a key part of this build. At this point Eldritch Battery is the only Keystone that this build uses. GEAR: This Build is VERY Gear dependent because of two factors. 1. You're weapon is already decided. You will be using Terminus Est. There is no If Ands or Buts. If you want to do this build you HAVE to use this sword. 2. You will likely want to use Voll's Protector BUT it is not required. The Power Charges provided by Volls allows you to reach over 50% Critical Strike Chance. There is currently no possible way to reach above 50% Critical Strike Chance without the use of Power Charges, and because you likely do not want to play the weapon switching game to build up charges with a Wand, you will want to use Volls. This locks in perhaps the two most important pieces of gear, your chest and your weapon. Luckily Terminus Est is a very good weapon stat wise, sadly Volls leaves a lot to be desired outside of generating Power Charges. But if you acquire very good gear for your other slots that focus on survivability, you can make this work. GEMS: Obviously your main skill gem will be Flicker Strike, and this should be the first gem you should attempt to get to 20% Quality because each % of quality adds 3% Critical Strike Chance, which as you can tell is VERY IMPORTANT for this build. Flicker Strike should be linked with Increased Critical Strike Chance as well as Increased Critical Strike Damage. From there you can either go for more damage, or support skills such as life leech or mana leech. I would suggest going for leech skills as this build avoids any kind of elemental boosting passives so adding elemental damage to your weapon will not do much. As you level up you will also use Frenzy, which is a great single target skill outside of just Building Frenzy charges as the bonuses it gets directly from Frenzy Charges cranks up its DPS to very high levels. But once you reach the point where your critical strike chance can sustain chaining Flicker Strikes you can potentially drop this off your bar. From there take your choice of the various melee AoEs such as Cleave and Leap Slam. Both can be very good, especially if you go for increased AoE Passives and gems. You should also link all critical strike related support gems to these skills as well. At this point you should have about 2-3 damaging skills. Flicker, Cleave, and/or Leap Slam. These will be your main damage dealers as well as possible escape skills. Proper use of Flicker Strike and Leap Slam can save your butt more often then not! Your remaining skills should be dedicated to survival. Such as Molten Shell, Determination, Enduring Cry. Finally your curse of choice. Obviously you will be going with Critical Weakness, though at higher levels where your critical chance naturally reaches above 50% you can likely pick a different curse. At max level Critical Weakness adds a straight 10% to your critical strike chance. Meaning if you have a 30% base chance to crit, attacking a mob with Critical weakness on them increases that chance to 40%. PASSIVES: So here is where we get to the real meat. To begin with this build focuses on two things. CRITICALS and SURVIVABILITY. The Passive tree in the game allows you to reach around 450% Critical Strike Chance increase with general non-weapon specific passives. Using a sword that has a 5% base chance to crit this lets you get to 27.5% Critical Chance. You will note that this build does not go for all the critical nodes simply because the position of some of the nodes are to far out. I based my decision to take critical nodes on if they are near survivability nodes and if they are on the path to key nodes such as Power Charges. Level 30: Passive skill tree build Around Level 30 you should be finishing up the normal mode of the game. This Build is starting to branch out into some key parts. You grab Frenzy Charges early as you should have the frenzy skill by now. Level 35: Passive skill tree build Level 35 is an important level. This is the Level you can use Voll's Protector. This is the level where you will start relying on criticals. You need to get Eldritch Battery before using Voll's Protector so as to offset the mana penalty you receive from the armor. Also picking up the Power Charges node allows you to start using Voll's to its full potential. Level 50: Passive skill tree build By this point you are now over by the Templar side of the forest and have collected every Power Charges Node. Right now you should start focusing on Survivability, but if you believe your gear is enough to pull you through you can start going into more damage such as grabing the AoE increasing nodes right below the second Power Charge Node, or going for the two-handed Critical Nodes that are to the left of the third and last Power Node. Level 70: Passive skill tree build Here is where you reach end game. I have not reached this point in the game yet with this build. But pretty much you have reached every single viable Critical Node. Now you have the option to go back to the Shadow side of the forest and start delving south for another Frenzy Charge node and more criticals. Or you can focus on more survivability on the Templar Side. Level 90: Passive skill tree build Here is the end game. As you can see I decided to focus on survivability nodes on the Templar side of the tree while dipping into some AoE increasing skills! If you make it to level 90, you know the build works, so posting this 'progression' is rather moot. Closing Comments: As I said this is a THEORY BUILD. I am currently level 51. I have Terminus Est. I have Voll's Protector. I have all the Gems I need. I will tell you how this goes and if it works. It IS fun to level up. You are a lot different then most range classes, and it is a very unique experience to play. Last edited by ARollingStone#0062 on Feb 19, 2013, 1:55:33 PM
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I am also lvl 50, developing my own FS build.
What is your opinion on the effectiveness of CI + blood rage vs terminus est for frenzy generation? I'm debating using both but I don't want to lose the crit from daggers... Currently I'm still using dual strike/LS untill I get to a high enough level to succeed with CI. At that point I'll swap to CI, flicker, and blood rage. IGN: OldManBalls (Warbands)
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" I personally feel Energy Shield is far to weak of a defensive stat. The fact that you can not use flasks to regenerate it is a giant nail in the coffin. There is also the fact that it is a lot harder to get a decent amount of energy shield compared to life. BUT, A CI Build That uses Blood Rage could achieve similar/better results as long as you kill in one shot with your flicker strike. The benefit of this build is that it is based on CRITTING and not killing. Thus making it far better for single target/boss DPS. The only single target skills I use is Frenzy Strike and flicker Strike. I find Frenzy strike to be vastly superior to any other single target skill because of the massive additional bonuses it gets from having Frenzy Charges. |
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Here is a Summary of what the Passive Skill tree will give at Level 70.
Keystones: Eldritch Battery Notable skills: Acceleration Agility Assassination Bloodthirst x2 Body and Soul Deep Wisdom Discipline and Training Divine Toughness Fitness x3 Maximum Frenzy Charges Maximum Power Charges x3 Mental Acuity Might Nullification Precision Pure Brutality Slaughter Misc. skills: Armour and Energy Shield x3 Attack Speed Critical Strike Chance x5 Critical Strike Multiplier Dexterity x7 Evasion and Energy Shield Frenzy Charge Duration Intelligence x21 Life x13 Life Regeneration Movement Speed Strength x3 Two Handed Critical Strike Chance x2 Stats Recap 18% increased Attack Speed +140 to Dexterity 44% increased Armour 62% increased maximum Energy Shield 250% increased Critical Strike Chance 30% increased Critical Strike Multiplier +20% to all Elemental Resistances +20 to maximum Mana +250 to Intelligence +50 to maximum Life 160% increased maximum Life Converts all Energy Shield to Mana 18% increased Evasion Rating +140 to Strength 18% increased Frenzy Charge Duration 1% of Life Regenerated per Second +1 Maximum Frenzy Charge +3 Maximum Power Charge 4% increased Movement Speed 10% increased Energy Shield Cooldown Recovery 10% increased Accuracy Rating 70% increased Critical Strike Chance with Two Handed Melee Weapons 12% increased Physical Damage with Two Handed Melee Weapons |
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" I took a look at the build, and if I was going to make an EB/armor crit build I'd start with templar. So i took your build and reconfigured it a bit (just suggestions/theorycrafting). First, I replicated your build almost exactly but ended up using 13 less points by sarting in templar. Next, I removed a few HP nodes in order to gain survivability through higher resistances (including hard to get chaos resist). Then I removed some points in things that I saw as unnessesary (mostly AoE radius and mana stuff). I replaced them with 30% increased buff effects which is a HUGE boost and compliments an EB build perfectly. Noticable differences: Pros: 75% higher crit chance 5% higher resist cap (20% reduction to all elemental damage when capped) 12% higher all resist + 32% chaos resist (these points are flexible depending on your gear, big advantage in mid-early game) more str and int better early game progression extremely flexible: depending on how well you're surviving and many health nodes you are willing to sacrifice you can gain some pretty insane nodes only a couple of points away once you get higher gear levels. Cons: less Dex 32% less health nodes 18% less attack speed nodes less accuracy overall I guess it'd be up to you based on how well you're surviving and whether or not you play hardcore. For me in softcore, I'd sacrifice some survivability for those benefits and the accuracy is easier to get on gear than the resists. IGN: OldManBalls (Warbands)
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That sounds cool! Can you post the build you came up with?
Also the reason I go Shadow is because of the easy access to the Full Dexterity side of the tree which provides more Frenzy, and more access to Critical and very good Sword Passives. Where as going south of the Templar side of the tree doesn't exactly lead to anything special. |
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This looks fantasterific! I've been really trying to get a constant flicker build but blood rage chaos dps is too much for me to handle at later levels and CI just doesnt interest me too much. I just went out and bought myself that sword and armor and i'm looking forward to reaching the point where I can use it. Level 1 right now and it might be a bit of a grind but it just seems too rad.
IGN: MelonFarmer
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{ignore this}
Last edited by Mezzo#4114 on Feb 23, 2013, 1:19:35 AM
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Just reached lvl 51 with this shadow build.
A couple things: 1. I started leveling using freeze pulse and frenzy, as I felt cleave was too clunky in the early levels. I socketed it so it would still level, but I didn't use it at all. Around Act 3 of Normal, I switched to leveling with Death's Harp + LMP + LA; much faster leveling in my opinion. I had all the other gems I would need once I hit 51 socketed in my off-hand. 2. I feel really squishy. My gear gives me full resists, but not a whole lot of life unfortunately. That being said, I haven't died so far since I made the switch. As a melee, I wish I had more health, but the next 4/5 of my next points will fill the templar health nodes, so that should help. 3. This is my first Mana character. I went blood magic on both my other alts (Melee Marauder lvl. 69, and Chain LA Marauder lvl. 61). With this character I feel like I don't have enough mana (971 Hp, 718 Mana). Maybe I do, but it just doesn't feel like enough. I run Purity, Determination, Clarity, and Anger(though I'll probably drop Anger if the mana cost becomes too much). The flat reserve auras are linked with blood magic to reduce the cost, and I'm left with 189 usable mana with 45.1 mana/sec regen, which seems to be more than enough until I'm at full frenzy charge stack spamming frenzy. 4. With full charge stacks I reach about 45% crit chance with both frenzy and flicker strike (not including the Crit Weakness curse). 5. In case anyone's wondering...my equips:
Spoiler
They're not the greatest, but they'll do for now. I'm rushing through Act 2 now. I spent a nice bit leveling in Felshrine so that I could use the Terminus in Act 3. I feel like my gem combos aren't the most efficient, but having spent a nice bit trying to link and chrome my items, I'm working with what I've been dealt. This build is pretty fun, but I feel like the real fun doesn't start until you wield the Terminus. I'll add updates as I progress further. Last edited by Mezzo#4114 on Feb 23, 2013, 1:20:57 AM
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So I'm currently in Merciless, and I find myself to be much to squishy. I believe that in order to survive you will need some pretty nice equips, which I don't have. So for now I'll probably scrap this character and retry it with a different build, probably one that doesn't use EB.
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